My MIL is truly the sweetest woman on earth, but very nervous and always wants to help way too much. She really can't see her own personal worth unless she is doing something for us. This leads to visits full of housework that no one asked her to do. Sometimes it's okay and I try to roll with it. Sometimes it backfires.

Several years ago I had to go out of town so she came to stay with the kids. Of course she took care of things like laundry while DH was at work. Unfortunately, she picked up my dirty shirt from off of the floor, next to the bed. Seems like a normal enough thing to do, but what she didn't know was that my dog, who was still a puppy, slept every night on my shirt. It calmed him greatly. He didn't really sleep well for the rest of the week.

Another habit of hers, for years, was to always do my dishes. Again, not too big of a deal, but she would always put things away in the weirdest spots. And then she would chirp about how I was going to have a devil of a time finding things once she was gone! And every time I would ask her to just stop putting things away, then. She just couldn't help herself.

The woman who grabbed my cane-holding arm to stop me as I was stepping down off a pavement to cross the road.

I couldn't even say anything, I was so taken aback, but apparently I looked like murder.

The lights had just changed in my favour, I knew that crossing well (she couldn't have known that), but grabbing someone mid-step manoeuvre? Could have caused me to fall while I was already injured. Also, who comes up behind a complete stranger and decides to intervene by grabbing their walking aid?

The woman who grabbed my cane-holding arm to stop me as I was stepping down off a pavement to cross the road.

I couldn't even say anything, I was so taken aback, but apparently I looked like murder.

The lights had just changed in my favour, I knew that crossing well (she couldn't have known that), but grabbing someone mid-step manoeuvre? Could have caused me to fall while I was already injured. Also, who comes up behind a complete stranger and decides to intervene by grabbing their walking aid?

My mom is 60, and has mobility issues. She often has to lean on things to help her balance. One day she was getting some yogurt at the grocery store, and was holding onto the handle of the door to the refrigerated case to help keep her balance while she was bending down. A man came up behind her and grabbed the door and pulled it open wider, thinking he was being helpful by holding open the door for her. Mom ended up falling and hurting herself because suddenly having the door yanked out of her grasp tipped her off-balance.

... Also, he would seldom do the useful things I asked him to do, such as helping me clean the cat boxes, clear out the utility room, declutter. Oh, no! He would insist upon starting some esoteric project that was #527 on the priority list.

...

And if I ask him to declutter? He'll point out a lot of my stuff that he thinks can go, but if I point out the 1983 paper airplane calendar that he has never, ever done anything with well---no, he might want to fool around with that someday so it's valuable. Or his ancient DOS books from the early 1990's. The he hasn't looked at since the early 1990's. Oh, and when he was 18 he worked for one day as a dishwasher in a restaurant. It didn't work out, but he still has the shirt they gave him with their logo on it. He's almost 56. I've known him 28 years and he has never worn it once, nor could he. He's not the skinny kid he was way back then and even if he could, why would he want to? But no, that can't go. He might want it someday, you know.

Don't. Just don't get me started. *sigh*

Proof again that we're all just passing around the same husband.

My husband doesn't do the "do other projects"--well, maybe not so badly.

But boy, does he go the "speck in your eye" thing when I ask him to declutter. He's suddenly picking up stuff of mine off the shelf and saying, "We don't need this!" Meanwhile, it's a small cutting board I just used 3 days ago and use about 10 times a year. And is flat and doesn't take up any room. But his LPs that he *never* listens to? He doesn't even see them. Makes me especially annoyed bcs *I* -do- weed out my own things.

One hot but nice July day, DH and I hosted a family picnic. I had things prepared and placed on the kitchen table, buffet style.

MIL suggested to DH that things looked ready to take outside onto the picnic tables, and unbeknownst to me, they each took a bowl of mayonnaise-based salad out to the picnic table, and then came inside to get a couple more things.

I happened to see DH with a bowl in his hand:Me: What are you doing?DH: Mom and I are taking things outside. Me: I wish you had asked me. It's too hot out there. I wanted the food left in the house where it's cooler. Everyone will be dishing up in here.DH: Oh

I was mad. And walked outside to retrieve what had been taken outside. I think I might have had help bringing things back in. I don't remember. All I remember was once again no one (MIL)asked me what I wanted, but went ahead and did what she decided what was best.

AmethystAnne's story reminds me of an episode with my mother and stepfather. We lived in a small house at the time, with a tiny kitchen, and they had come to dinner. After dinner mom and stepdad started carrying plates and serving dishes back into the kitchen. I told them to please not do this, that there was no room in the kitchen for everything at once, and that the table had to be cleared gradually as I loaded the dishwasher. They knew best however, and kept carrying and piling things into a humungous mess in the kitchen. So.......I started racing past them carrying the mess back to the dining room. After several passes they noticed what I was doing, got angry, and stopped so that I could do the dishes according to my own system in peace.

There was a casualty, however. In their misguided zeal to help, one of them put a plate of half eaten food on a burner of the electric stove, which had accidentally been left on low. When my mother noticed the food burning on the plate she grabbed it, put it into the sink, and ran cold water on it hoping to hide the burned food before I saw it. The water was considerably colder than the plate, however, and it cracked. If she had just left it to cool normally it may have been ok, because the plate was ovenproof.

This was a plate from my "good" dishes, and mom did feel badly that it was ruined. I don't think that she ever realized that she was the person who likely broke it - she blamed my stepfather for putting it on the stove. She did, however, buy a replacement.

\After dinner mom and stepdad started carrying plates and serving dishes back into the kitchen. I told them to please not do this, that there was no room in the kitchen for everything at once, and that the table had to be cleared gradually as I loaded the dishwasher. They knew best however, and kept carrying and piling things into a humungous mess in the kitchen. So.......I started racing past them carrying the mess back to the dining room. \

I've been there!People were stacking the dishes on top of one another, w/ food and silverware on them, and I was certain the dishes were going to slide right off the stack. I now get really assertive about, "I will clear the table, and if I need help, I will ask."

DH was terrible at "helping". If we had people coming over he would want to do things on his own schedule. I'd rather have them done first, then you have contingency time. If you don't need the contingency time you can use it to relax. Also he would do things that HE thought needed doing that weren't that important IMHO. Then I tried explaining everything that needed doing before guests arrived so he knew what was on the agenda and could pick and choose what he wanted to do. DH then turned around and accused me of micromanaging. He doesn't often criticise but it's even rarer that I push back. I actually raised my voice when pointing out he had put me in a no-win situation. He's properly supportive now, and has stopped "tidying up" by taking everything from downstairs and putting it in piles upstairs. That's not "tidying" that's moving things from one room to another.

I go clay pigeon shooting. There's always a man who likes to say "You were behind that." Yeah, if you say so. Now go away. The world ladies' champion says that men do it to her too, and she can outshoot them all.

The woman who grabbed my cane-holding arm to stop me as I was stepping down off a pavement to cross the road.

I couldn't even say anything, I was so taken aback, but apparently I looked like murder.

The lights had just changed in my favour, I knew that crossing well (she couldn't have known that), but grabbing someone mid-step manoeuvre? Could have caused me to fall while I was already injured. Also, who comes up behind a complete stranger and decides to intervene by grabbing their walking aid?

This reminds me of the time my MIL nearly made me fall off our boat. She's the sort that will grab you if she thinks you're going to fall down or if she has to brake suddenly, you get the forearm across the chest. Dh and I have both asked her to please stop doing that but 'she can't help herself.'

We were coming in after a day out with the ILs and I was scampering about the outer hull area getting the ropes ready. Another boat came by moving much too fast and threw a largeish wake. I saw it coming and braced myself. All of a sudden, a hand wrapped itself around my ankle and pulled hard. It was all I could do to keep my balance. I looked down and my MIL was there and said, "Thank goodness I was there, you almost fell!"

Dh told her to please not do that again and if I should feel like I'm going to fall, I can push myself away from the boat. If I'd have fallen with her hand around my ankle like that, I'd probably fall backward and down, crack my head open on the hull and fall under the boat, which would be a BIG PROBLEM if the props are still going. I still get the forearm across the chest occasionally but she's never since done that while I'm on the boat.

I don't know if it could be called "helping" so much, but there was a time DH and I lived with my folks when he got out of the Marines. It was only about 2 months but man it sure felt longer.

Being toddlers at the time, my older two boys were in the "I don't want to nap/go down for the night even if I'm exhausted" stage. And my folks would always swoop in with a "But they don't have to go anywhere tomorrow right? So why not let them stay up till they're tired? Why do you have to be so anal about a bedtime?" Well not using the word anal but implying it. Cause it's the routine they'd had for the last 18 months and 3 years respectively and the more the parents swooped in, the less the boys would listen to DH and I.

Logged

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars. You have a right to be here. Be cheerful, strive to be happy. -Desiderata

My ex would try to "help" I did housework, but what drove me bonkers is that he would never go off and do his own thing. Oh no, he always had to be working alongside me, doing whatever it was *I* was doing, which is a hindrance to me,not a help. Also, he would seldom do the useful things I asked him to do, such as helping me clean the cat boxes, clear out the utility room, declutter. Oh, no! He would insist upon starting some esoteric project that was #527 on the priority list.

Hey! That's my husband! If I ask him to, say, take out the trash you can bet he's going to empty the dishwasher. If I ask him to strip the bed, you can bet he's going to straighten the living room. Or go in the garage to search for the one tool he needs to finish a project he started six months ago but just *has* to be done now all of a sudden.

And if I ask him to declutter? He'll point out a lot of my stuff that he thinks can go, but if I point out the 1983 paper airplane calendar that he has never, ever done anything with well---no, he might want to fool around with that someday so it's valuable. Or his ancient DOS books from the early 1990's. The he hasn't looked at since the early 1990's. Oh, and when he was 18 he worked for one day as a dishwasher in a restaurant. It didn't work out, but he still has the shirt they gave him with their logo on it. He's almost 56. I've known him 28 years and he has never worn it once, nor could he. He's not the skinny kid he was way back then and even if he could, why would he want to? But no, that can't go. He might want it someday, you know.

Don't. Just don't get me started. *sigh*

Proof again that we're all just passing around the same husband.

Oh so you know my husband then? Whenever I ask him to help me with something around the house, he disappears. Where is he? Washing the cars. Did I ask you to wash the cars? Why do you hear "wash the cars" when I asked you to please unload the dryer? I say housework, he hears car.

Growing up, my family lived in this drafty old place that needed the windows and entire patio covered in those plastic sheets or the cold and snow will come in. My siblings and I prefer to do it ourselves, but my mom always think we are incompetent and have to get involved. Her idea of help is putting up the plastic in a way that results in needing to take it down and put it back up over and over (it's hard to explain her method), all the while screaming at us. It took all day when it should be an hour or two. Of course, she also never listen to us on how it should be done so we were stuck with her way of doing things. We hated that time of the year and still talk about it with horror decades later. Eventually, we learned to sneakily do the job when she's out of the house and it was so relaxing and peaceful and easy without her dictating and screaming.

What kills me is when I hand my husband something with directions to put it away and I turn around and IT'SRIGHT BACK ON THE TABLE I'M TRYING TO CLEAN! In what world is putting something back in the exact same space putting something away? That is not helping. and then I get the PA looks and comments about being too OCD for help. No, actually help, don't get in the way and double my workload.

It works much better now that we use a list of the major things to do separate tasks. Everything else is done in drunken worker bee fashion, with him trailing behind me "helping" and me quietly going on to another task until he abandons it and comes to help me again. enough rounds of this and things eventually get finished.

What kills me is when I hand my husband something with directions to put it away and I turn around and IT'SRIGHT BACK ON THE TABLE I'M TRYING TO CLEAN! In what world is putting something back in the exact same space putting something away? That is not helping. and then I get the PA looks and comments about being too OCD for help. No, actually help, don't get in the way and double my workload.

My mother used to say, "Put it away away!" And now I say it.

I've had to get lengthy: "I want this piece of paper to be completely taken care of, not just off the table, but dealt with, filed, whatever."

When I still lived with my parents, he took it upon himself to clean my dresser top. I will be the first to admit, it looked like a small tornado had gone over it, but to my teenaged sensibilities, it was organized chaos. The earrings weren't in the earring drawer, but I knew exactly where they were. Same with the hairbrush and barettes, lip gloss, etc. I was mad for a week after he did that, at least until I had located most of the stuff he had so helpfully "put away". BUT, I understand that it was his house, and he did have a right to do what he did. (Although it was so "counter-helpful" to me that I literally had to re-purchase some items that I could. not. find.)

Cue to current day, my DF (now DH) and I had recently purchased a house, and we got a dog. My parents would occasionally come and pick up our dog while we were at work, to take him to the off-leash park with their dog. This part was SUPER helpful, as it meant we did not need to walk him after work and could just relax. But one day, dirty dishes had gotten away from us, and there was a sinkful, as well as a pile on the counter awaiting washing when we got home that evening. Upon dropping off our dog, my dad washed every single dish he could find out in our kitchen. Well, I got home and lost my mind. I KNOW he thought he was being helpful, but to me, it was a gesture saying "If you kids are too darned irresponsible/lazy to keep up with your dishes, I guess I'll just have to let myself in and do them myself." I had words with my mother, and it has never happened again.

Size 11 ladies shoe here, I guess you have to expect your toes to get stepped on once in a while

(For the record, my dad is one of the greatest men I know. He really, honestly, wants to help, anyone, anytime he can. He's just a bit misguided occasionally. Also for the record, I am as stubborn as a mule )